Mazda Europe promotes sales boss to CEO

Mazda Europe is promoting its sales and customer service chief, Martijn ten Brink, to president and CEO.

Ten Brink will succeed Yasuhiro Aoyama who will return to the company's headquarters in Hiroshima, Japan, to head global marketing and sales at the automaker. Aoyama has led European operations since 2019.

"As we successfully emerge from the pandemic across Europe, we decided it was the right time to put into action management changes we had planned as part of our mid-term plan development," Mazda CEO Akira Marumoto said.

Europe is an "incredibly important" market for Mazda and one where it is rolling out new technologies in a "very competitive environment," Marumoto said.

Ten Brink began his career at BMW in Italy in 1993, as a marketing trainee, before joining Honda three years later as an assistant marketing manager. He then joined Mazda Europe in 1999, holding a number of marketing and sales roles over the next nine years.

In 2008, was head of Mazda's sales in the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg. He was then promoted to head of sales, before taking up his present position in 2016.

In other moves, Wojciech Halarewicz, currently head of communications and public affairs at Mazda Europe, will replace ten Brink in his current role, and Matthias Sileghem, currently head of Mazda's Belux operations, which cover Belgium and Luxembourg, will oversee customer experience, communications and public affairs in Europe. 

Alex Janssens, currently chief information officer and head of information services, parts and supply and logistics at Mazda's logistics unit in Europe, will take charge of information technologies and parts supply and logistics at Mazda Europe, while continuing as chief information officer.

Masaharu Kondo, currently general manager of sales and marketing for Mazda in Japan, will join the European unit as a head of business and product strategy.

All changes will be effective from June 24.

Sales of Mazda vehicles in the EU, EFTA and UK markets fell 6.2 percent to 33,959 in the first quarter, according to data from industry association ACEA. Market share fell from 1.2 percent to 1.1 percent in the same period.